


Choices

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-15
Updated: 2001-04-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 05:47:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11329776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Choices by XWoman1013

CHOICES  
By XWoman1013  
October - November, 2000  
Category: Sk/K (slash), but all feelings are not strictly slash  
Rating: NC-17  
Archive: yes! with author's permission  
Author's Notes: My first substantial slash. The setting is the post-invasion United States, as love lost changes to love found - but not like they expected ;)   
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of CC, 1013, and Fox; no infringement intended, no profit is made.  
Feedback: Please and thank you: 

* * *

CHOICES  
By XWoman1013  
October - November, 2000

September 26, 2000

It's been close to a month now, and I have decided I must keep track of the events as they unfold before me. I sometimes feel like I've left my body and am a spectator watching this lost soul stumbling to find the light. It is not me, it can't be. 

I've been looking for paper to write on, and decided that it must be time to start my journal since I found a rusted out dumpster filed with discarded office supplies. Lucky for me, someone did their recycling before it happened - I now have the backs of several office memos to write on. Most people use the paper they find to burn for heat, though, but I'll find other scraps of paper from other burnt out shells of buildings.

My world is covered in a mist, a smoky haze that is the only thing they left us; an ethereal mist that has the vague shape of what used to be beneath it. The smoke has its own structure, it seems - I can almost see my building, the place I called home, the place I used to work, a bar I went to. I walk the foggy streets looking for people I knew, but on the other side of the cloud are only more clouds.

There are times I do run into people, the few who stayed in DC, who had nowhere else to go. Not everything is gone, only everything I love. Loved.

  
September 30

A man tried to kill me today. He wanted whatever I had on me, any scrap of food my tattered coat might hide, something to trade. He was small, weak, and desperate. I snapped his neck. Then I searched him for food or something to trade. He had shoes that were still in one piece and I took them. I walked away, and didn't consider till much later what I had become. What have they done to us with this utter devastation? I wished they had annihilated us totally, and then took my wish back. You might still be there, and if you are, I will find you. 

  
October 4

I traded the shoes today for two Slim-Jim's and a Milky Way bar. I ate them too fast and almost threw up. Water is hard to find as well, unless I take to drinking the water that has collected in the gutters like others have. It's not all water, however, so I don't drink it. The next time it rains I'll refill my canteen. I need to find another one, because this one has a hole in it. I have to carry it flat so my precious water doesn't leak out. I know the water from the sky is tainted as well, but it has to be better than puddle water.

I have to start moving. I've looked for you everywhere here and need to start a bigger search. I went to your mom's house, or where it used to be, to the makeshift shelters filled with the moaning masses. I went through the rubble of your office, where you were when it happened, and pulled through the broken bricks with my bare hands. There was a body there, but not yours. You got out, I know you did. I'd feel it if you were dead.

  
October 12 

I think I have radiation burns. I hadn't really noticed them until today. I thought I just had burns from the fire, but they are more than that. There are blisters on my neck, a few on my back. They are uncomfortable, but either they are not painful or I am no longer allowing myself to feel. They feel tight, like the tightness in my chest when I think of you. My body, my heart, my brain: all feel tight. Constricted. Choking me. My tears imprinted streaks on my sooty cheeks.

  
October 19

I found more paper today and a box of pencils in a burned out drug store. No drugs left, of course, nothing for the pain. I'll try to trade paper for aspirin. Does anyone else need to chronicle his or her thoughts like I do? What do people do when they need to just talk to another human creature, and they find none? I talk to you in these pages, on these scraps. Sometimes I hear you answer. You speak softly and only I can hear it. You tell me to be strong, that you are waiting. I believe you.

I found another pair of shoes yesterday. He won't miss them. 

  
October 24

I saw him today. I know I did. In the shadows as always, but unmistakable. I yelled after him, but he didn't come back. I will find him. Krycek has to have some answers, and I will make him tell me about you. How did he survive? He is the roach survivor from the alien bomb, the rat who grows stronger by mutating. Ratboy. I heard you call him that - before. I will capture the rat, and grow strong in devouring him.

I traded today with a man on the street. He had 4 slices of dry bread and two Tylenol, for which I gave him 4 sheets of paper and one pencil, which I shaved to a point for him for no extra charge. He eyed my pocketknife, probably planning to take it from me, but I still have an imposing figure when I pull myself to full height, when I am not bent with stomach cramps. He turned and sat down on the banquette, taking each sheet of paper and writing "I am here" on each one before throwing it into the wind.

  
October 28

Krycek found me last night. I felt a force land atop me while I slept and looked up into his beady eyes. Rat eyes. You were right. But he still had lashes framing those dark eyes. His hair was intact - no loss from radiation. He was with them when it happened, protected. He would not say what had happened to them - had he just got away? Or had he killed the others? 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"It doesn't matter. I know what you want. I wonder what you have to trade for the information?" Krycek breathed into my face.

"I have pencils, one slice of bread, and a pair of shoes," I replied. I had been using the extra pair of shoes as a pillow, to elevate my head out of the stagnant water on the streets when I could find no shelter.

"I want something else," he whispered as I felt his hand pull up my shirt. I thought he was checking me for weapons, wanting to take my pocketknife, but he wasn't patting me down - he was feeling me up. He wanted sex in exchange for information about Dana. I felt his cold skin touch mine as he undid the buckle of my belt. I'd given up on underwear two weeks ago, so he found me quickly after removing the barrier.

"Why? Why are you doing this to me?" I squirmed under his weight. He was stronger than I was at this point. 

"It's been a long time, old friend."

"I was never your friend."

"You need me now, old man, don't forget that. If I were you, I'd let me take what I want. We'll talk after."

Tonight's shelter was a blown-out basement hole behind a pile of bricks. There was no one in sight, but surely there were people in earshot. I'd heard the sound of anonymous sexual encounters on several occasions, but never gave in myself. Sex was one of the main commodities -nothing to trade? Suck my dick for a piece of bread. I'll let you fuck that woman for your shoes. I tried to jerk off once, but the radiation or the hunger had weakened me, and I quit halfway through to conserve energy.

Krycek's hand was soft compared to my own, and my body responded to his touch. He'd pulled my pants down to my thighs, and the cool night air along with the public display made my cock hard. Old injunctions die hard, but why should I care now if anyone would see me? I was no longer Walter Skinner, Assistant Director of the FBI; I was one of the masses, trying to survive by any means necessary. What did I care if my former enemy gave me a hand job? I'd call it exercise, not rape, not sex for trade.

In a strange way it felt good just to be touched - the only human contact I'd had since that day was getting beaten up or doing the beating. No one even wanted to shake hands in a trade. But now I was being fondled. Would it be blasphemy to say I thought of her? I imagined it was her stroking me? To admit that I pictured her when I felt his mouth on me and that when I began to involuntarily buck into his mouth, I prayed that when I opened my eyes Dana would be there, smiling at me, lips glistening?

Perhaps that cheats all of us. Krycek was there, doing this, and my body responded.

"Don't come yet." He stood up and shucked his jeans off with alacrity. Top clothed, bottom bare except the pant leg still around his left ankle, he squatted over my hips, clamping the fingers of his prosthetic hand onto my tattered coat for balance, and used his other hand to guide my cock into his ass. The squat position widened him out and he took me in after only a few pushes. His body had done this many times. He rocked above me, settling his ass into the trough of my pelvis, grinding into me on every beat.

"I always knew you'd have a big cock, Skinner. Your personality just screamed it. Jesus, you're a fucking stallion! You're going to let me do this for every bit of information I give you," he ground out through clenched teeth as he fucked himself on my cock. He grabbed his dick, stiffening it and bringing himself off. As I saw him erupt, I felt my balls draw up and had my own anti-climactic climax. No waves of ecstasy; one spasm, maybe two, and I was done. Krycek rode his out as long as possible.

"Whoo! That's the best fuck I've had all week, Skinner. Thanks for your participation." Standing up, he took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wiped his ass with it before throwing it down to me. "You might want to get some of that off your face. I hear rats like the smell of it."

"I guess you'd know," I said under my breath as I wiped off. Krycek zipped up and made a seat for himself out of the pile of bricks. 

"Now be nice, Wally. You and I are going to be friends for a while yet, and we might as well get along."

The former AD would have shown his power here, but now it was better for me to change the subject. "Do you know where." I didn't want him to see into my heart, the one last thing I had that felt remotely clean.

"Yeah, I know where Scully is. I'll take you there." He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket - one of which he could have traded to almost anyone for what he'd just gotten from me -and lit up.

"Why?"

"I'd walk a mile for a fuck like that," he parodied as he blew smoke. "No, Wally, you may notice I'm here and *they* aren't? I'm a bit pissed about that, and starting to think that resistance may have been the better move," he laughed sardonically. "I was asked to resign my commission with the Syndicate, you might say."

"You're trying to tell me you've switched sides? Right." I threw the sullied cloth to the ground and fastened my pants. 

"Nope, not really, I guess you'd say I'm on my own side," he said as he took another deep drag on the cig. 

"How is that different than before?"

"Are you going to use up your 20 questions this way? Don't you want to know about Scully?"

Anger swelled up in me, but I quashed it. Everything that made my life make sense was destroyed that first weekend in September over the space of 36 hours. His was the only familiar face I'd seen since then, and I couldn't risk letting the alliance go because of the past -distant or recent. "Yeah, tell me what you know about Scully."

"You mean like, is she alive?" he smirked. I looked at him through slitted eyes, barely covering my desire to jump up and kill him. He took another drag before answering. "Yeah, she's alive. At least she was a week ago. We'll set off at first light."

"Where is she?"

"South of here. That's all you get today. We'll go together." He walked up and gave me a light punch in the shoulder. "It'll be like one of those buddy road movies."

"So if you're Thelma *and* Louise, who does that make me?"

He reared back to punch me, then refrained. "You get one of those, Skinner. I noticed, by the way, that you had a good time at our little party. Who knows, you might grow to prefer me to her." His fingers glided down my cheek. He'd bought me, all right; at least my body. Never my soul.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

October 31

Krycek and I made a deal, one that I pray will help me find you. You don't need to know our barter, sweet one, only that all I do I do for you.

Today was Halloween, one of your favorite holidays. At least you and Mulder seemed to enjoy it. Everyone looks like a ghoul now, every day is Halloween. I saw my reflection in an unbroken storefront somewhere in West Virginia. I am a hollow man. I've probably lost 30 pounds. My cheeks and eyes are sunken, my ribs are visible. It's not so much the weight as the strength - it wanes easily after a few hours of walking. Krycek feeds me information as we forage along. I'm scared to eat any meat because of the radiation. We found a live chicken -scrawny, but alive - and Krycek wrung its neck and stewed it with root vegetables I pulled out of the dirt. He laughed at me, saying I was filled with radiation poisoning and the chicken wouldn't make any difference. I wondered why he ate it too. Hunger makes a man do strange things.

  
November 2

We found bicycles yesterday and have been able to cover more ground. I still don't know where I'm going, but at least I can get there faster. Krycek has not harmed me; I want you to know that. I think part of him relishes the company. Who knows what he would do if threatened, but it's not come to that. He assured me that as long as I keep our deal, he wouldn't raise a hand to me. 

Crossing down through West Virginia I got to see him in defensive action. We were riding a country road and three men ambushed us around a bend. One tried to take my paper. I kicked him in the chest and felt his brittle ribs give way, puncturing his lungs. He never got up. Krycek fought the other two. One got a roundhouse to the face; the other felt his knife in the gut. The one may live, but he was still unconscious when we left. We stripped them of all valuables and rode away. There was another pocketknife, two AA batteries (who knows when they will be useful), a pack of cigarettes, and some dried meat. We greedily ate the meat as we rode into the coming night.

We made camp off the side of the road; far enough in that other travelers wouldn't see us, close enough to hear anyone who might pass. Krycek is always looking for someone to roll.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was cool that night and Krycek slept huddled next to me. He had a blanket in his small pack that barely covered us. In the night I felt his hands on my body like a lover's, I felt his hips begin to move slowly against me as he dreamt. He mumbled, no names, and his lips brushed my cheek.

"I miss you, baby, I love you," he said to his phantom. He kissed me on the mouth and I froze -if he awoke and I was not partaking, would he beat me? Worse yet, would he leave me, never telling me where Dana is? I kissed him back. My mind echoed his words. I miss you, baby, I love you. If he could use me as a surrogate, I could do the same.

I turned to my side, face to face with him, and pulled him close to me, kissing and caressing Alex Krycek. The bristles of his beard were transformed in my mind - they were only the smooth red hair of my love as I brushed it tenderly. I unbuttoned his shirt, pinching and sucking his nipples, imagining the heaviness of her breasts, taut nipples offered up to me. His smooth hairless chest added to the fantasy, his belly more muscular but flat like hers. I unsnapped his jeans and slid them over his narrow hips, and buried my face in Dana's curly auburn tuft. As I took his cock into my mouth as I thought of her clit, that most sensitive nub, how it would become prominent as I teased it with my tongue. As Krycek slept, I laved and suckled my beloved there in those woods, beneath the sky. I stopped to pull down my pants and I saw her face as I looked up, eyes bright with excitement, pale skin shimmering in the moonlight.

I worked his jeans off so that I could position myself fully between her legs. I wanted Dana, needed her as I pushed Krycek's knees up to his chest. My cock was hard and aching for her as I entered him. I popped through the ring of muscle into her sweet, tight cunt, pumping in and out of her as I fucked him. I smelled the sweet wet musk of her skin as my balls slapped his ass with every stroke. I groaned her name over and over as I pistoned in and out of his ass, and screamed it as I came.

Then I rolled off of him in shame, wiping off my fast-wilting dick with leaves, as Krycek became fully aware of what had happened. 

"I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you. That happens only when I say."

"You started it." That was mature. I was going to continue but thought better of it. "Let's forget it and get back to sleep."

He cleaned himself up a bit and lay back down. "Good night, Louise," he taunted.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

November 7

We are in North Carolina, I think. My fears are compounded with every step, and the sounds and sights of this dying world do not help. Will I find you before my radiation sickness takes me? Will you really be where he leads me? Will I still be someone you recognize, or will my time with Krycek disfigure my soul? I cannot resist Krycek. Please forgive me - there are times when I don't want to. He keeps telling me he is bringing me closer to you, and expects payment for it.

I must have some substantial food soon; my body continues to waste away. Krycek is like a pig rutting for truffles as he finds vegetables in the ground, edible grasses, and the odd left-behind in the kitchens we break into. A can of salmon two days ago is the last protein I had. We'd found a farmhouse and claimed it as our own after removing the rotting corpses of the previous occupants. We gathered everything of use, including a new canteen for me, and the remnants of a jar of Vaseline to rub into my scarring burns, and left after two night's rest.

  
November 11

Krycek shot a deer yesterday, and we have feasted on its meat. I thought he must have a gun, but he hadn't used it until then. I balked at eating it at first then Krycek laughed and spilled his secret. It was not radiation that killed everyone, but the goddamn virus, the new Black Death. My burns that he had let develop into a source of constant fear were no more than that -burns. My body was so weak it could not heal them, but they were only from fire. He told me this so I could eat and build my strength. He complained that I haven't been of much use to him, not aggressive as he needs me to be. I ate the venison greedily. We are going to dry some in the strangely hot stale air that surrounds us. The weather is peculiar. I don't completely believe Krycek about the radiation. The atmosphere has changed since it happened. It is November but it is warm. Ever-present clouds hold in the heat. But radiation is supposed to make everything cold, right? I don't understand what is happening in our world. I suppose it is not our world anymore.

  
November 14

It is 10 weeks since the invasion. We are back on the road, the meat as dry as we need for now. I punctured my bicycle tire yesterday, so Krycek rides ahead and scouts, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I am stronger now, but nothing like you remember me.

  
November 16

We found another bike on a farm in southern North Carolina - or northern South Carolina - and now we ride together again. He told me, without trade, that you were somewhere in Georgia. They had taken you there just before, planning to use your medical knowledge. All Krycek would say is that is not what happened. Does that mean you became a patient instead? A prisoner? In the night when the fear settles over me, I am smothered by the thought that you might be dead. That he is just using me. I reassert to myself that I would know if you were dead. 

He said I might have answers by Christmas, maybe sooner, depending on whether we make good time. A few hundred miles to see you. I can do that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Skinner, get up!" Krycek hissed as stood over me, rousing me with his foot.

"What? What is it?" I wiped the sleep from my eyes and kicked the blanket off.

"There's someone outside. Get the knife." 

I followed him to the door of tonight's abandoned building as we saw vague shadows outside, looking for a way in. Three people, maybe four, whispering, telling each other to be quiet. We'd seen a few bands of people here and there as we traveled, but only killed them when they threatened us. Skinner/Krycek 9, Others 0.

They tried the knob but were having trouble pushing through the barrier I'd made. One of them picked up a rock but before it could smashing the glass, Krycek yelled, "If you make it through that door, I've got a Smith and Wesson.38 to greet you. If you make it past that, my friend has a 12-inch knife that he'll gut you with. Keep coming if that's what you want!"

I heard the rock drop to the ground and feet grind against the gritty floor as they ran from the hallway. Krycek had scared them off for the moment. My own heart pounded like a trip hammer in my chest. Were they going to find another way in and kill us? Or wait for us to come out? Krycek had given away that there were only two of us. His eyes were wild as he turned back to me.

"We have to keep watch tonight. You first." He handed me the gun and warned me that if I had any ideas about using it on him, I'd never find you. 

They came back within the hour, no doubt with more weapons. I heard the scuffles of feet trying to walk softly, but I located them at the side window. They planned to surprise us, but when I saw the full shadow of a man in the window, I shot him.

Krycek awoke, drawing the knife, waiting for the next assault. The would-be invaders ran, and we did not hear them come back. We went to check the body, to see what might be stripped from him.

"The ragged remnants," Krycek mumbled.

"What?"

"Consortium." He seized the weapons from his former comrade, and the leather jacket the man wore. He didn't care that it was now stained with his blood; he only touched the bullet hole and nodded his head. "Good work, Skinner. You saved my life." He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and kissed me.

I pulled back. "I saved my own."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

November 18

I don't want you to know what I've become. I rationalize and say all is fair in (there is no love here) war. 

  
November 19

I slept while he went out on recon. I was awakened by sounds in our camp, transients (weren't we all?) rummaging through our possessions. I must have made a noise and drawn attention to myself, because one of them was on top of me in the next instant, knife at my throat, knees pinning my arms down under the blanket. He drew the knife high, and I quickly shut my eyes to visualize your face, the last thing I wanted to see before I died. A shot rang out, blood spattered on me, then the man toppled off me. The others ran. Krycek came out from the scrub with a still smoking gun. He told me to quit making him waste ammunition, but I could see in his eyes that he was relieved I was not dead. We shared a rabbit he had snared as a victory feast, roasting it on a spit.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Thanks." I tore another scrap of meat from the bone.

"Right."

"I still really don't know why you've decided to be my protector. What's in it for you?"

Krycek gazed into the fire for a long moment, then answered, "I need something that's there, too, and we have a better chance of making it together. You used to be a good fighter. Maybe we get some weight on you and you will be again." He spit a tiny piece of bone into the fire. He smiled devilishly up at me with those dark eyes and said, "besides, aren't you having fun?"

"Yeah." We ate in silence a few minutes more. "Krycek, what happened - in the last minutes? Why did you really leave the Consortium?"

He went to a far off place in his mind and the playful look vanished. "They made sacrifices I couldn't. Actually, they made my sacrifice for me and when I questioned it, I was thrown out. Abandoned."

"Sacrifice?"

He rose from his rock seat and kicked in the dirt, wanting but not wanting to share his pain. He looked over at me and simply said, "Marita." He sighed deeply and turned away from me.

I went to him and put a hand to his shoulder, but he shrugged me off. "Alex," I began, but he laughed.

"Oh, it's Alex now is it? Are we friends? Look, Skinner, I found you and made you mine. Don't you forget that. We are not a team; we are not friends. There is only one thing on this earth I still want and you are along for the ride because I fucking-well choose it!" Tears hung on the rims of his eyes, pulling the long lashes into clumps. Through clenched teeth he warned, "Don't try to be my friend."

"Because you have so many?"

He walked a few paces and stood with his back to me. I don't know why, but I felt drawn to him, and touched him again. This time he did not refuse.

"So, feeling sorry for me, old man?"

"No."

I felt his body hitch with suppressed emotion, then he fell into me and sobbed, railing at the injustice done to him, throwing his fist in the air, screaming, wailing. He'd given his life and his loyalty, and they paid him back by taking the one person he loved. How could I refuse to empathize with this? He let me hold him and I gently wiped the tears from his face. We'd traveled together for almost a month now, hundreds of miles, passing the time with war stories to fight off despair. Anger now turned to - what? Rape now turned to - what?

He began to calm, soothed by me after letting the demons fly out. Kisses to his forehead turned to kisses on his cheeks, then on his mouth. I kissed him this time. For the first time I did not kiss Dana. Alex looked into my eyes as if he knew, and he battled with his desires. Giving into what was happening would mean the end of his dominance over me. It meant he could receive affection and closeness, rather than taking what he wanted by threat or force.

He gave up his struggle, and so did I. My pretense that it was Dana, I mean. I kissed Alex. I put my hand into Alex's pants and felt Alex's cock and I wanted to. I felt his flat stomach and his hairless chest and saw his face when I opened my eyes. I pushed the bullet-holed jacket off his shoulders and opened his shirt, drawing my fingers across his still-heaving chest. The night chill made his nipples erect and I leaned down, running my tongue over his sensitive nubs, and I felt him arch into me. I worked the shirt over his prosthesis and he seemed ashamed for me to see him this way. I kissed the straps that held it in place and the place where his natural arm ended. I accepted him. He let me.

"You want this?" he asked - not just the sex, but the man himself.

"Yes." I pulled him close, nearer the fire and helped him off with his jeans. Naked except for his socks, he lay on his back, lit by the glow of the flames, and watched as I took off my clothes. I had put on some weight, or at least stopped losing, and he stared at me. He looked vulnerable, although perhaps it was a mistake to think so. I was already getting hard, and the smallest smile came to his lips. I knelt between his knees and lay on top of him, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, cock to cock. The soft kisses exchanged earlier gave way to deep plunges into the other's territory, friction building, sweat dripping between us.

He hardly spoke except murmurs of encouragement. He was no longer topping from below; he was letting himself be a part of the experience. I felt his hard cock pressing into my belly, trapped between us, and he begged me to fuck him. He let me prepare him this time, rather than impaling himself on me, rather than making himself hurt. I stretched him gently with two fingers, then three, and he relaxed under me. I pushed up on one arm and lubed my cock as best I could with sweat and spit and pre-cum. He let his legs drape over my shoulders as I guided myself into him slowly, letting him relax around me, then popped past the ring of muscle and settled deep inside him. I stilled there for a moment, and I looked down at him. He nodded his head and I began to move, thrusting slowly, balancing against him, then reached between us to stroke him against me.

So slick and hot, his beautiful body beneath me, my thrusts became deeper and faster. I plunged in and out of him as he grunted with pleasure. He spread his knees apart farther to allow me in as deeply as I could get, rocking with me, teeth grinding as he shouted into the night. I felt the tingle come from the far reaches of my body, running the adrenaline highway straight to my cock, till I exploded into him. Three more strokes and Alex came, shooting milky strands onto our chests. Tarns of semen formed in the pit of his belly, and I withdrew from him with a final kiss.

"Let's go clean up." There was a stream about 10 yards from our camp and we sat together in the dark water, cleaning each other, kissing, caressing.

When we got back to camp, nearly everything we had was stolen. Luckily, some of the clothes were still there, and Alex had taken the gun with us, but otherwise, we had nothing.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

November 22

The day before Thanksgiving. Krycek and I have come to a new understanding, and there is less tension in our camp. I believe we're in Georgia now. Many of our belongings were stolen a few nights ago, including the bikes, but we have found some things and made smart barter for others. The small bag I usually wear around my waist that contains my notes to you was not seen in the darkness of the camp, and for that I am grateful.

I have heard there is a refugee camp near Atlanta, although Atlanta itself no longer exists. Krycek thinks you are there, taken there before the invasion.

My health is improving, mainly because of the meat we have been able to trap. Rabbits, squirrels, raccoon, all seem to find their way into Krycek's snares. My blistered sores are diminishing, leaving scars, a constant remembrance of what happened. I grow strong thinking of you.

  
November 23

I want to tell you that I am thankful for every thought of you, because I have not forgotten one aspect of your face. The little mole on your lip, the tiny scar by your ear, the blue of your eyes. The pictures I have of you in my mind will sustain me until I see you.

Is it strange to say I'm also thankful for Alex Krycek? Will you think it is Stockholm Syndrome when you read this? Perhaps. He has saved my life and I have saved his. I am thankful he no longer makes me prove myself for every piece of information he gives me. He knows as well as I that his facts (if they ever were facts) are probably long outdated, and not nearly as useful as before. I think he has told me everything he knows about you, about what happened. Just before it happened, the Smoking Man took you, minutes before, and pulled out of DC like the last chopper out of Saigon, before the sky was lit with fire. Krycek said the Smoker adored you, worshiped you, and bargained with Them for your life. I don't care why or how, only that you did survive. Do you hear me, Dana? I don't care what you had to do to survive. We have all made deals with the devil, and there will be no shame, no need to seek forgiveness when we are reunited. I say this for us both.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"What do you keep writing?" Alex asked as he prepared tonight's meal. Squirrel Surprise, he joked.

"Just thoughts, a record of what's happened." He'd never asked before.

"Are you writing about me?" A mischievous smile accompanied his query.

"It's not about you, you little egomaniac. But your name is mentioned once or twice."

"What, how you hated me and now you love me?" As soon as he said it, he dropped his head. He'd said something more serious than he'd meant to say.

I let him off the hook. "There is a vague reference to how you are not nearly as evil a villain as I once thought."

He stirred the pot and set the branch-spoon on a rock. He shyly scooted toward me. "But still evil, right?"

"Yes, still evil."

"Good. I can't be losing my reputation at this point in the game." He sidled in next to me and I could smell the sweet mingled scents of Alex and dogwood smoke.

I folded the sheet of paper I was writing on and set it aside. "Your secret's safe with me." I planted a kiss on his moist brow and put my arm around him, letting him in close.

We sat like that several minutes, chatting benignly about the miles to go and the blisters on our feet, good smell of Squirrel Surprise, and then he became quiet.

"You know, she's never going to let you near her if I'm there. I was responsible for her sister's death."

I'd never heard him admit it out loud, but I knew it, of course. I'd forgotten, though. I wondered what that meant about my loyalty to Dana.

"Yes, I know. We'll work it out."

"Work it out? How do you expect to do that?" he sneered. He broke away from me with a panicked look on his face.

"What are you going to say? 'Scully, dear, I know Alex here killed your sister, but, c'mon, he's been pretty nice to me for a few weeks so, cut him a break, okay?' Yeah, that'll go over big."

He tried to get up and walk away but I pulled him back. Part of me still didn't believe the feelings I had for him - sure couldn't name them - but I wasn't willing to let him go.

"Alex, stop. I said we'd work it out. I didn't say it would be easy. You've been more than nice to me. Granted, in the beginning, I'd have killed you if I had the strength and the chance, but," I smiled, "what's Thelma without Louise?"

He shook his head and got up to stir the pot.

 "Soup's on."

"I'm gonna go wash up in the stream. Be right back."

I pushed through the brush to the trickle of water I generously called a stream. I splashed the cool water on my face then fell to the earth. Gunshots. Two.

"ALEX!!"

I ran back to camp, stupidly, not looking for intruders, only rushing to his side.

"Are you okay? Where'd it hit you?"

My hand pushed back the lapel of the coat that now had a fresh bullet hole. But. it was in the arm. the left arm. I leaned in close.

"Shut up, you idiot," he hissed, "this is your chance to get away. He can take you to her. Leave me for dead. He'll never know if you thank him enough."

Only then did I look up to see the would-be assassin. I was stunned.

"But. I saw your body. in the basement, your office."

Mulder's gun was still drawn as he walked over and pulled me away from Alex.

"You saw what they wanted you to see. Skinner, did he hurt you? What are you doing here with him?"

I looked down at Alex and considered my options -go with Mulder, straight to Dana, or try to convince Mulder that he could be trusted. Defend Krycek? Not only was he the killer of Scully's sister, but the killer of Mulder's father. Why was I even asking myself to make a choice between Mulder and Krycek? Why didn't I eagerly accept Krycek's offer?

I shook my head, speaking slowly, trying to understand what I was doing.

"No, Mulder, it's okay. I'm not his prisoner. He's helping me find Scully. Get up, Alex."

He played dead another moment until I nudged him with my foot.

"The jig's up."

He opened his eyes and scowled at me, then held up his good arm for a lift.

Mulder looked at us in angry confusion.

"HE is not our FRIEND!"

Mulder was near exploding. I had no idea what he'd been through in these past months but it was no more than most of us. We'd all made sacrifices. I wasn't about to let Mulder take control of a situation that he knew nothing about. Hard-headed sonofabitch.

"Just stop and take a breath, Mulder. It's not what you think. Krycek and I have been traveling together about a month now, and despite the past, it's been a good alliance. It's all right, Mulder; I'm okay."

Alex stood by my side, unspeaking and unmoving, perhaps a little too brazen, but to an onlooker it would have looked like two against one.

Mulder looked at me like I had horns coming out of my head. He must be thinking I'd turned. I had hardly ever been considered trustworthy, and now I'd surely proven myself a traitor in his eyes.

"I won't take him there. I won't let him near her. I will fucking-well blow his brains out with my last bullet before I'd let him anywhere near her."

He spit in the dirt to punctuate his venom.

"Mulder, I'm not going to change your mind in the next 10 minutes, and I know you are aware I let myself be compromised at the FBI. You have reason to distrust us both. ... All I can tell you is that I'm willing to let him help me. Alex saved my life, Mulder," I said simply.

But not so simple for Mulder.

"So he saved your life. What did he ask for in return? Besides a fuck in a burned out basement or park somewhere?"

I was stunned. My jaw hung open and Mulder laughed at me.

"Yeah, Skinner, that's the usual price for Alex's service. Strangely enough, though, instead of giving it, he likes to take it up the ass, don't you, sweetie?" Mulder made a grotesque gesture that matched the feeling in my stomach. Was I so naïve?

Alex went toward him, ready to throw the first punch, but I pulled him back.

 "This won't help. All I want is to get to Scully."

Mulder kicked around in the dirt and reiterated that Krycek wouldn't get within 100 yards of Scully.

"That's fine," Alex told him. "I'm not after Scully. Personally, *I* never was. I was always on someone else's payroll. I have another reason for making the trip," he said as he shot me a keep-your-mouth-shut glance, "and I'll peel off and go my own direction in about 50 miles. That's three, four days tops. Then I'm gone."

"Why not just go now? I'll take him from here. Skinner and I will go west, you go east, and if there is a God left, I'll never see you again."

Mulder had a disgusted look as he noted I still had my hand on Krycek's arm. Too intimate. Too telling. Obvious now to Mulder. Fuck. My last shred of credibility was gone.

"Oh, I get it." he laughed with incredulity, "you don't want to be separated. You want to be together. Aw, for Christ's sake, Skinner! He's a murderer! You're playing rump rangers with a goddam multiple murderer!"

I surprised myself with the strength of the words coming out of my mouth in a rush.

"Shut up, Mulder! This may seem ludicrous to you. Traitorous, even. All I can say is that it's my choice to be here. I've been strong enough to leave for a few weeks now. I chose to stay, partly because he knows about Scully, although I think he told me all he knew about that a while back. But more than that, he's been a valuable travel companion, and he's saved my life more than once."

Alex looked up at Mulder from beneath those lush lashes and said something I never thought I'd hear. "Mulder, this is not really an apology, but I am sorry for the role I played in keeping you from the truth, including the deaths of your father and Scully's sister. Yeah, you have all the reason in the world to want to kill me. But hear this - I was played the same way you were. I suffer like you do. They've taken the one good thing in my life and I'm going to get it back. I'm going to get her back."

Mulder, however, was unmoved.

"So, Skinner's cock was just a little layover?" he said with a sarcastic sneer.

"Mulder, this is getting us nowhere. It's not -"

"It's not what I think?" he interrupted. "You aren't having sex? You aren't fucking by the country roadsides? What, what exactly is not what I think?"

He kicked up dust as his movements became more manic.

Before I could answer, Alex burst in.

"It's not like that!" Mulder was incredulous.

"So, what? Are you telling me you're in love? Fat fuckin' chance. You know, I don't care anyway. You two can call it whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that he killed my father and Scully's sister and God knows how many others along the way, that he lied to me and manipulated me --"

The words stuck in Mulder's throat as he looked pleadingly in my eyes one last time then ran into the night. Krycek turned away from me.

"I have a feeling there is more story here than I know. You wanna tell it?"

"I'm sure you already know."

Now it was Krycek's turn to scuffle in the dirt, but it was vulnerable, embarrassed.

"Mulder and I were together once."

"Together as in outside your FBI partnership?"

"Yup."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It was a few weeks intensive, but a few months on and off. We'd play this little game where I broke into his apartment, and if I negotiated all the booby traps, I got to climb in bed with him. It was great for a while. We were compatible lovers - he gave and I took, which is how he likes it, by the way. That's why the two of you will never get together," he laughed. "Two tops.never works."

The moonlight reflected off his white teeth.

I returned his smile and said, "If you call what I was doing at the beginning topping, I might have to see if I can find a reference manual for you in one of these abandoned bookstores."

"Pass. I've had enough of "The Joy of Gay Sex" to last a lifetime. Predators need to top, and I had to be a predator then."

He ducked his head away, shy again.

"Sorry."

I walked to him, still not understanding (let alone acknowledging) my feelings, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah. Don't do it again. I really would have killed you then if I'd had a gun or the strength. I don't know what this is, and I wish Mulder would have stayed, but here we are, and I still need to get to Scully. We have to realize Mulder's probably gone to get reinforcements, and it may not be safe for you much longer."

He finally turned around and faced me, and drew me to him, our eyes only inches apart.

"Well, then, I guess we make the most of the time we have. I've never been one for trying to sort out relationships, Skinner, but I do know that having you along was better than being alone on this trip. And I do know a part of me has gotten used to a part of you," he said as he pulled me close enough to feel his hard cock through his jeans.

"Jesus, Krycek, Mulder nearly blows your head off and you get hard. Nice. If I ever ask about your childhood, remind me I don't want to know."

In a fit of lustful abandon I picked him up off the ground and he hooked his legs behind my back. An innocent laugh turned in a half-second to pure heat. I didn't care at that moment that he had been Mulder's lover. That he had been Bill Mulder and Melissa Scully's killer. I had to have him, and I *wanted* to have him.

The friction of the denim over the straining members only intensified my desire. There was no space between us for my cock to change positions, though it desperately wanted to go from pointing down to pointing up, and I finally had to make Krycek get off me. Just for a moment - I couldn't wait to play out the visual I was having of fucking him up against a tree.

"Get off me so I can take my pants off."

"No problem."

We untangled long enough to shed our clothes. I was going to fuck him but good. I looked up from my task to find Krycek already fully undressed and looking as good as I've ever seen a man look.

"That Squirrel Surprise has done right by you. You look good enough to."

I grabbed my hip-pack as I led him over to a tree with a low branch. I dropped the pack next to me then he let me hook his arm to the branch. He had one hand free to touch my head, his rough fingers on my smooth scalp.

He let me manipulate him into position and I knelt at his feet. I didn't understand our strange bond, but at that moment, I didn't care. I took his hard cock into my mouth, gulping it on the first go. Goddam! What a tool this guy had! Not as long as mine, but as thick, surely - a big mouthful that I took in almost all the way.

"Christ, Skinner, I'm gonna shoot in about 2 seconds if you don't back off!" Our eyes met as he looked down as me, the tip of his cock still brushing my lips, his musky dew making a trail between us.

I got up and walked away.

"Skinner - where you going? Hey, come back! You can get me off right now if that's what you want! Skinner - hey! You cocktease!"

A green branch, stripped of its bark, would do the trick.

"Bite this, and keep the wails and moans to a minimum, will ya? Who knows what's in these woods. You might attract coyotes."

I stuck the small branch between his teeth.

"Mufferfuffer!"

"Keep that thought."

I went back to his still hard cock and sucked it back in, but not all the way this time. I teased him, trailing my tongue over his glans, licking him like an ice cream cone, then deep throating him. I kissed down the underside till I reached his balls. More muffled grunts and slurs came from Krycek's gagged mouth as I rolled his balls in my mouth, one after the other, gently tugging on them till I felt them quiver on my tongue. His hand had moved from my head onto his shaft as I worked his underside. I felt the blood pulsing through him, every pulse of his exciting my own. Rocking and pumping, my mouth worked his balls as I started stretching him with two fingers. His muscles contracted against me as I felt a rush of air as the stick in his mouth become a projectile that nearly missed my ear as he yelled nonsense words and came with a second projectile launch.

I watched him arch and spurt as his sphincter bore down on my fingers. He was stunning, hot, sexy, and I let him enjoy the last waves without removing my fingers - I wanted him, wanted to come in him, and it better happen pretty soon. I'd been holding on for dear life but he'd calmed enough for me to use my free hand to pull my hip-pack over. I pulled out the Vaseline greased up, gripping the jar between my thighs. Watching him come made me ache for him even more.

Jar aside, I stood and did the unclamping - my fingers from his ass, then his hand from the tree. I kissed him deeply before flipping him to face the tree. Aw, Sweet Jesus his tight little ass offered up to me, spreading his legs for me. You bet I wanted to be inside him, and he was ready for me. I pushed in the first inch.

"What are you a Zen master or something?"

I paused at the internal ring, but felt I hardly needed to.

"Whuh?" Krycek grumbled into the tree.

"You're still so open - you didn't tighten back up," I said as I began the second push, rolling my hips in a figure eight till I could push past it with ease.

"Yeah, yeah, voodoo, Zen, Jedi mind tricks, whatever, just - WOAH God!"

He screamed as I buried myself in him.

"Oh, sonofabitch, Walter -"

I stopped instantly. Frozen. Caught in the dead light of memory.

"Never call me that. Only she calls me that."

Needless to say, it was over for the day. I castigated myself for my sexual single-mindedness, wanting only him, realizing I hadn't thought about Dana from the moment Mulder left until Krycek said my name. Walter. Only she calls me Walter. No one else had - has -that intimacy with me. I can't remember anyone else since mom and Sharon who even wanted to call me that. Skinner, Mr. Skinner, AD Skinner, keep your distance. Mothers and wives call you by your first name. Who the hell does he think he is?

I cleaned myself up and threw the rag over to him.

"There's some on your shoulder."

"What the fuck, Skinner? What happened?"

He was pulling his jeans back on as defense against the cold, my cold.

"Just don't call me that."

"What? Your name? We've been together for 2 months and I can't call you Walter?"

"I don't want to hear that name out of your mouth."

"Walter? Why? What does that mean? Would it mean you actually admit you care about me? And you think that would mean you don't care about her anymore?"

I was in a daze and only reawakened by the feel of his hand on my still-naked back. I flinched, and his face fell as he took a step back.

"Listen, Skinner, I don't know the inner workings of that head of yours, or what it means to you to hear your name, but I'm not standing here asking for your undying love, for god's sake. Take a look at yourself and decide if you're still my prisoner, or, like you told Mulder, if you are with me by choice. But, sorry for the news flash, you've been a willing participant for a long time."

He reached out for me again, grazing the skin of my face, then walked down to the creek.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

November 23  
Later..

Tonight I just sat by the fire, staring into it, trying to conjure your face. I panicked for a moment when at first I couldn't, but then an image came to me - not you the way you might look now, not the last time I saw you, but the first time I saw you. It was right after you were assigned to me. Your hair long and natural, your features still slightly rounded, young, not defined and sleek like they are now. You saw the worst of me that day, though you didn't know it. I was deep into a blackmailed alliance with the Smoking Man. He had you assigned to me, you know now, but I really had no idea the depths he'd plumb to maintain his grasp on you. I believe Krycek when he said the Smoker negotiated your safety with the colonists. Why? I never knew before. Still don't. Surely, he never believed you could love him. Maybe he wanted you to work for him. Is he with you now, seeing you now when I can't produce a recent image of you? As I am with Krycek, is he with you?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

What about Krycek? What a fucking mess. Feelings, for a man, let alone for him, are basically incomprehensible to me. Perhaps I could blame it on brain atrophy from lack of protein. Stockholm Syndrome. Right. Everything except what is probably most true, and the only thing that really makes sense, which is, "positive feelings grew." Dana will ask me why I was with him, I can honestly tell her that after a rocky beginning (I don't think I will ever tell her some of it), he saved my life, fed me information, we traveled together, and feelings grew. Positive feelings. I liked his company, or appreciated it, anyway. 

Even in my head, as I sit here against a log at our campfire, it is not 10 minutes since I had his dick in my mouth, and only because I wanted it there. Not that I've never given a blowjob before; not too many, though. Twenty-five years ago, but I did. Got a few, too, from guys. But adolescent explorations and desperation in the face of war and death don't account for this. In-country it happened because 18-year-old boy-men had no idea how to deal with an existential crisis except to have sex of any possible kind. To somehow feel something other than fear. We certainly never talked about it, and no one considered it a relationship. Shit, you looked too long at the guy who blew you the night before, and he'd accuse you of being a fag. That was not like this. I look at Krycek the next day, sometimes look at him for a long time. I like looking at him. He's handsome, a combination of hard and soft that I've never seen in a man before. Tough, single-minded, determined, but . what? I sat there and puzzled by the fire a minute longer, then decided all the thinking in the world was not going to change my original answer. Feelings grew.

I pulled up from the ground and dusted off. A chill was settling into the air and I pulled a shirt on before going down to the creek. Alex stood by the edge, just kicking a foot in the rocks and the shallows with his head low. 

"Hey, we better get going. Like I said, I'll travel with you long enough to get you on the right path, Skinner, and then I'm out. I know Marita isn't where Scully is, or at least she wasn't at first. She's probably dead, but I'm going anyway." He didn't look up at me.

"If you want, we can go together - I mean, we'll look for them both, together. Scully, then Marita. Scully may even know where she is if they're keeping her someplace important like you think." I walked closer to him but he still didn't look up.

"Nah, once you find her, you won't need me. Fuck, you don't need me now." 

I pulled in behind him and circled him in my arms. "Yeah, but I like havin' you around anyway."

"Right."

I kissed his cheek, rough with several days scruff. "Okay, then, I need you because you are the best squirrel-snarer I've ever met, and you have the gun with the bullets."

"That's much closer to the truth, Skinner."

"Walter."

He stopped kicking the rocks. "What?"

"If you want to, you can call me Walter. Or Walt. Never Wally, or I will kill you in your sleep."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I want you to call me Walt or Walter or Skinner or 'hey you', whatever you want."

"Why?"

I let out a sigh and pulled him closer to me, the heat of our bare skin melting the barrier between us. 

"Because feelings grew."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" 

He craned his head around to look at me.

"Just what I said. Now, you want to stand here or you want to go pack up camp so that we aren't sitting ducks when Mulder and his crew come to take a shot at you?"

He turned and stood nose to nose with me. 

"Yeah, let's blow this joint. You know, you will have to explain that bullshit you just said to me at some point."

We walked back up to camp. 

"Just pack."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

November 24

I saw Mulder yesterday. He will likely come after us, after telling you that I have abandoned you and our cause, and then try to kill Krycek. He probably won't kill me, I hope not. I don't want him to kill anyone. There are only so many of us left in the world. Old lines of good and bad are not as meaningful as they were before. I keep wondering if I am irrationally justifying my actions.

We traveled a few hours with a young couple that were trying to find the refugee camp. They were pretty sure that we are on the right road. It may be another week's walk. So much closer than we thought. Can you feel me near you? It was nice to talk to someone other than Krycek. They had walked almost the whole distance from their home in Ohio, and were hoping to find a distant relative who may have been relocated to the camp. Their only possible remaining family.

As we pass the desolate and deserted landscape, the rubble and ruin left by the colonists, I laugh - what a fucking joke that turned out to be. They didn't colonize a goddam thing. They came, they killed, they took, they left. Of those who weren't immediately killed, a large percentage died slowly and agonizingly with the black oil that contaminated the water supply. 

The military tried to mount a defense, you know, and was decimated. Mulder nearly went insane. He'd been as far up and then back down the chain, trying to tell them what he knew, but they never listened. Then, they crawled to him, 4-star generals and admirals pleading with him to help them fight the aggressors, but it was over so quickly that no amount of antiterrorist maneuvering was going to save anyone. Mulder saved himself when he could no longer save you. I don't know if he looked for me or his three friends or his mom.

The nights are colder now, more like late November, and we have built a fire for warmth. The couple walked faster than us and is some way ahead now. If you have a moment of despair, I hope they come to you at that moment and tell you I am alive, and I will see you soon.

  
November 30

Outside Atlanta. Actually, between Athens and Atlanta. This is a good stretch of road to walk. Many more people now, we pass more around every turn. Krycek is nervous. He knows there are more than Mulder and his posse who wouldn't mind killing him. He wants to leave, but I convince him to stay. We agree to walk in the woods until it turns dark.

  
December 1

I may see you tomorrow, or the next day. Surely this week! The closer to Atlanta, the stranger Krycek gets, paranoid, not wanting anyone to see him. I have never seen his anxiety this high.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Of course I'm nervous!" Krycek yelled. "Only about half the remaining population hates my guts, and half of them would kill me if given the chance." He hit his walking stick against a tree and watched it splinter. "What am I supposed to do, walk in the shadows all day?"

"We'll both do what we can to stay safe. Only a few more days now, Alex." I tried to comfort him but he was sullen today, walking unnecessarily with the weight of the world - or what was left of it. 

"Yeah, then the ticker tape parade for Alex Krycek will begin." He walked through the grove of trees, staring at the ground, unwilling to meet my eyes. "You know I can't go with you, don't you?"

He has been drawing away from me since Mulder's ambush. Guys like Krycek have a limited way of seeing the world - either you're screwing someone or someone's screwing you. He'd had both, that's for sure, but living in the fluid boundaries of our now-gray world is not the right place for him. All he knows is to leave it.

"You can go or not go. If you choose to stay with me, though, I'll protect you. No patrols have come for us. No one is trying at this point to keep us from the refugee camp. Maybe it's not as bad a situation as you think, Alex." 

He stood still long enough to accept my hand around his waist, but his eyes were hard, cold.

"You think that just because I'm not road kill now that I won't be whenever any of them want it? You do understand that your people and my people would like to see me dead. You asked before if I was nervous - I lied. I'm scared to death. I'm scared of death." 

He fell into me and let me rub his back as he thought his desperate thoughts. 

"I'll protect you," I whispered in his ear. My lips caressed the hills and valleys of his ear, whispering what I think women call "sweet nothings" (although he'd probably cuff me for that one), just . loving words.

He pulled away without looking me in the eye. He knew as well as I that my words came not from my head but my heart. I couldn't protect him. They'd shoot him on sight. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

December 3

I can see the remaining skyline of Atlanta is the distance. I will see you tomorrow. I am torn by my feelings at this moment. I am desperate to see you and hold you again, but I'm reluctant to end the journey, and the alliance I've forged with Krycek. I am still confused by Krycek, but, again, I ask for your understanding.

We've been traveling in the woods more than on the road, mostly for Krycek's peace of mind. He is sure Mulder has sent a squad to kill him. He is probably right, but I can't blame Mulder for that action. Things are not nearly as desperate now as they were in the beginning, love. We have a fairly ample supply of food, and get protein almost every day. We now meet people along the way who aren't bartering to save their lives, but to get the things they need to start setting up a new life. Farmhouses along the way are reclaimed, the rooms at the motels dotting this rural landscape are filled with people grouping together, forming new family bands, finding new people to love. I am as hopeful at this moment as I have been since it happened.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"This is where I get off, Skinner. I'm going down to Gainesville. There is a research facility there." 

We had been walking together slowly for the past several hours, side-by-side but rarely speaking, both of us knowing that the relationship we'd developed was likely coming to an end.

"I have a proposal for you," I said. 

He eyed me suspiciously. 

"Nothing that momentous. I want you to wait for me in a place you feel safe. We'll make you a shelter tonight, and you can wait. I'll go see if Scully's there, and get information on Marita, then come back. I mean, what's the sense in you going on if Marita is here?"

He considered it, then reached for my hand as we walked. 

"Are you getting sweet on me, Walt?" he smiled.

I paused a delicious second then said, "Getting? I've been sweet on you for a while, honey-child."

I used my very best southern accent.

"Honey-child? And who the hell were you supposed to be? You sounded like my grandfather."

"Ouch!" I grasped the symbolic knife in my heart.

"It was Rhett Butler, or southern, anyway, befitting our present circumstance."

"You must be scared, using all those big words."

"I am scared. Things are getting ready to change. Questions will be answered. Things I've been searching for are about to be found. And. I'm scared of what will happen to you. And us."

We stopped. The late afternoon breeze was now cool, more like I would expect in the south in December, but the air between us had turned strange and still. 

"Like you said, things are changing. You know as well as I that after you go to the camp that it won't be the same. So, hey," he dropped my hand and walked a few steps, "fun while it lasted, huh? No hard feelings, you go your way and I'll go mine." 

He tried to brush it off, push me away, and make the parting easier somehow. But it couldn't be that easy. 

"I don't think so, Alex. At least, I don't want that." 

I tried to hold him but he wrested from my grip.

"I don't understand why you're doing this! Just let it be!"

"Hey, what's the harm in waiting a day? Why not set up camp for a night and let me bring you back intel? If nothing else, you're a day behind in a journey that's taken close to 10 weeks now. And," I held his jaw so that he would look at me, "I want to do this for you."

I don't know how to describe the look he had. Krycek was certainly not one to tell me his feelings - nor am I the type - but that look told me pain, despair, desperation.loss. 

"Yeah, okay, one night. If you don't come back, I'm gone."

I smiled. Why did that make me so happy? 

"And, as an added bonus, you and I spend another night together. What could be wrong with that?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

December 4

I'm leaving Krycek to come and look for you. He has agreed to stay here one night so that I may bring him news from the camp. I know I will see you today, so this will likely be my last journal entry. I feel so confident that it seems absurd to write this next thought, but, I want to reiterate to you and anyone else - Krycek helped me, and although he forced his will on me at the beginning, we did come to an understanding, we did find a way to work together, and we have traveled much of this path as friends.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I'm getting ready to leave. You will wait, right?" 

I packed up my kit bag and looked around our woodsy camp for anything else I shouldn't leave behind. I did not want to leave him, but he insisted. A thought nagged at the corner of my brain - that he would not be here when I returned - but I pushed it aside.

"I said I would." 

He was still under the blanket in the cold foggy pre-dawn.

"If I'm not back by tomorrow night, something's wrong, and you should leave. But I will be back." 

I stopped my packing and knelt by his side. 

"While you're gone I'll practice my whittling." 

His smile, true and natural, felt like a promise to me. I felt peaceful, finally, not consumed with anxiety.

I lay beside him. 

"That sounds very constructive. Perhaps practice your knots as well. Think about your next merit badge." 

From my arm-prop I leaned down to kiss him. He pulled me in quickly to a deep wet kiss. Our dueling face scruff awakened the impulses I'd been trying to keep at bay the past few days. Maybe I thought I was transitioning from him to you, but as he caressed my head, then let his hand play down my shoulder and inside my shirt, I wanted him. One last time? I hoped not.

As quickly as I had dressed in the cold air, the heat between us made me take it off. I yanked his jeans down and pulled the blanket over my back, making a tent for our body heat. We had been eating so much better, our strength back with force, and I loved touching his strong body. His muscles were so tight and it was as though I could feel every one as my hands glided over him. His nipples in hard little pellets as I brushed them with my thumb, then down to suck them, each in turn, listening to him groan. Oh god, the feeling of him under me was incredible, twitching and contracting as I sucked and touched him. 

My tongue played down his abs, dipping into his navel as my chin was brushed by the dark trail of hair that led downward. I took his partially erect cock in my hand and worked it as I kissed all around, down one thigh and up the other, my mouth coming to rest on his scrotum. His dark musky scent sent my brain into overdrive. Being inside him was all I could think about. I let go of him for the long moment it took to put the last of the Vaseline on my cock and on the fingers I slowly inserted into his rectum. 

"Give me a little push, let me in, I want to be inside you," I said in a hoarse whisper. He did, and I pushed in farther, then with another finger and he growled for me to get on with it. Face to face - I didn't like it the other ways - I pushed his knees up and positioned myself at his entrance and he took me in.

"Go ahead, Walter, I want to feel it, put it in, fuck me, fuck me," he mumbled. 

He'd never - since that night - called me by my name when we made love. Then, a thought came to me - we hadn't really made love before. Oh, god, I was making love to Alex Krycek.

"No fucking today, Alex," I whispered, and his eyes opened momentarily as if to question me, but squeezed shut as I pushed in. The warmth, god, the feeling of him, so tight, holding me. The muscles rippling and contracting, magic fingers around me. I buried myself in his warmth, his dark cave that held me, then released me as I began to thrust. I reached around and held his cock against the fur of my belly, stroking him against me with every push into him. His breathing quickened as I accelerated, reaching the point where I couldn't control my thrusts, jerking, lurching and twitching as my body went tight and full, rigid with the last spasm as I came with a growl. Alex, only seconds behind, shot streams of cum over my hand and onto his belly, white drops and pools on the hills and valleys of his glorious physique. As we slowed, I kissed them, tasting his essence, his salty game-tinged juice, then I kissed his mouth. Deeply. Fully. Finally.

We lay together for several minutes just touching and feeling the last twinges subside. Had I ever felt this before? Sated. At peace.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He smiled at me when I left, as I walked toward her and away from him. I'd be back within 24 hours, I promised. "You wait for me here. You'll be safe, Alex."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

December 4, late

You are not here. You were here, but you are gone now. Mulder is also gone. Those left in command told me that he moved you to a safer place, fearing for your safety from "enemies" whom he had cause to believe were in the area. Mulder was worried about the baby, he said. The man told me you were going to have a baby in the next few months. 

I can hardly write this: Is it our baby?

There is so much more to lose now. I will never get next to you as long as Alex is with me. There is no other choice but to choose between you.

The pain is deep in me. I could never hurt you; but somehow Mulder convinced you I would - and will. I am leaving you a message here so that if you return you will know this. My every thought is about protecting those I love. I can only protect Alex by letting him go.

I got the information I could about Marita -sketchy at best - and am returning to see him one last time.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Alex?" 

I called his name over and over. Remnants of the camp remained - a smoldering fire, his ragged bullet-holed shirt - but he wouldn't answer me. There was no blood, no cause to suspect a fight, but my gut tied in a hundred knots as the panic set in. My breaths grew short as my chest tightened. 

"ALEX!" 

I started making circles out from the camp, deeper into the wood, but there was no sign of him. When all the light had gone from the sky, I found my way back to camp by moonlight. I would wait the night for him, but the tightness in my chest would not subside. It made my heart ache.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He did not wait for me. You did not wait for me. Although I have come to accept that my feelings for Alex are more than "positive" - and that it was more than tight muscles that made my heart ache - I have no choice. As the morning sun warms my face, I feel a clarity and know that, just as he told me, that loving him does not mean I do not love you. He, above all, would understand.

I have no choice.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

THE END

  
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Archived: 13:47 03/07/01 


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